Juliusz Słowacki’s Anhelli is a prose poem of exile, published in Paris in 1838 and dedicated to Stefan H. It follows a group of Polish exiles deported to Siberia, where an old Siberian king-priest called the Szaman chooses one young man, Anhelli, to witness the suffering of his people and carry a burden of love and pity that no one else could bear. The work moves through visions, miracles, and graves, asking what consolation is possible for a nation that has lost its homeland and whether sacrifice can redeem it.
“A gorsze jest jutro życia, niż jutro śmierci.”
The Exiles Build Their House in the Snow
The poem opens with the arrival of the exiles in Siberian land. About a thousand people of various estates build a wooden house and live there in brotherly love; the government supplies wives, since the decree sends them for settlement. For a time there is great order and great sorrow, because the exiles cannot forget their exile or that they will never see their homeland again unless God wills it. When the house is finished, each takes up work—except those who wish to be called wise and remain idle, claiming to think about saving the homeland.
Then a great flock of black birds flies from the north, followed by a camp, sledges drawn by dogs, herds of reindeer, and men on skates carrying spears: the whole Siberian people. At their head walks a king who is also a priest, dressed in furs and corals, wearing a wreath of dead serpents instead of a crown. He greets the exiles in their own language, says he knew their fathers, who lived godfearingly and died crying “Fatherland!”, and offers a covenant between his people and them. Of their fathers, he notes, only one still lives—old, far away in a solitary hut, and favorable to him. He offers to become their guide and abandon his people, since the exiles are more unhappy. The exiles honor him and invite him to their shed; the covenant is made, his people disperse to their snowy villages, and the king stays to comfort the exiles. His wisdom is admired as inherited from their fathers, and he is called Szaman—the Siberian name for kings and priests who are sorcerers.
The Szaman Chooses Anhelli
The Szaman examines the exiles’ hearts and concludes their hearts are weak and will be conquered by sorrow; good in happiness, misery would make them wicked. He questions God why people must perish when each flower is allowed to bloom where it has proper soil and life. He resolves to choose one, love him as a son, and at death give him his burden—greater than others can bear—so that redemption may be in him, showing him all the misfortunes of the land and then leaving him alone in great darkness with thoughts and longing.
He calls the youth Anhelli, lays hands on him, and pours in heartfelt love for people and pity. He tells the crowd he will depart with the youth to show him painful things, while they remain to learn to endure hunger, misery, and sorrow—but they should have hope, for hope will come from them to future generations and revive them; if hope dies in them, future generations will be of dead people. What they think will be fulfilled and great joy will be on earth on the day of resurrection. They will be in graves with rotted shrouds, yet their graves will be holy, and God will turn worms away from their bodies and clothe them in proud dead dignity—they will be beautiful, like their fathers in graves, whose skulls neither gnash nor suffer but seem to say “I did well.” He warns they are like people standing on an elevation, watched by those who come.
He would tell them the mystery that some souls go into the sun and others depart to dark stars, and why millions of new souls are born and for what purpose the body is given—but they will not understand. He tells them to be calm not about tomorrow but about the day that will be the tomorrow of their death, since the tomorrow of life is worse than the tomorrow of death—though base and small-hearted people think otherwise. The crowd asks who gave him authority to teach about life and death, noting they have priests among them to whom God’s word belongs. The Szaman replies that they have heard of Moses and his miracles; he is a Moses between the Siberian people and has done more terrible miracles—did not an Angel come out of the northern aurora when he called it from the flames? At his word the snow became blood and the sun blackened like coal; there is much of God in him. But they should not tempt him to miracles, for they are an old people and to resurrect them by miracle is hard; they should ask God to resurrect them and draw them from the grave, making them a nation placed a second time in a cradle and swaddled, to grow straight and not crooked in body. The exiles dared not answer but promised with the Siberian people to keep the covenant.
The Priest Who Sells Bread for Souls
One night the Szaman wakes Anhelli, saying not to sleep but to come, for there are important things on the desert. Anhelli dons a white robe and follows the old man by starlight. They see a whole camp of small children and boys driven to Siberia resting by a fire; in the middle sits a pop, a priest, on a Tatar horse, with two baskets of bread at his saddle. He teaches the children according to the new Russian faith and new catechism, asking them unworthy things; the boys answer fawningly because he has bread and can feed them, and they were hungry. The Szaman tells Anhelli to say whether this priest has not exceeded measure, sowing bad seed and ruining the purity of these little souls: they have already forgotten to weep for their mothers and ingratiate themselves for bread like little puppies, barking evil things against the faith—saying the Tsar is the head of the faith, that God is in him, that he can command nothing against the Holy Spirit, even ordering things akin to crimes, since the Holy Spirit is in him. The Szaman says he will use heavenly fire against this priest to burn him and destroy him in the children’s eyes. At the Szaman’s word of curse the pop on the horse ignites, flames issue from his breast, and the passage breaks off there.
The Man Who Ate Lead
The narrative turns to a man of God seized and forced into a tight peasant coat; because he is stout, he is shut into it with difficulty and stands motionless like a dead thing. Brought to the mine, he pretends his heart is well, but the narrator sees he is pale and sad. He gives way to despair and withers like an old tree. The narrator asks why he gnaws at himself, fearing God; the man answers with great secrecy, like one deranged, that he has forgotten the words of his prayer, threatens silence with a finger, and leaves. Later the narrator sees him take rotten lead in the darkness and eat that poison. After some days a brick-red flush comes to his face, his flesh falls on his bones like wet tent cloth, his eyes shine. He dies without a heard sigh while the narrator sleeps beside him; the narrator asks pity for him, calling him an honest man.
Anhelli turns to the Szaman and says: “he is a suicide!” The Szaman covers his eyes, lifts a piece of lead from the ground, and says the lead is the killer and a bad counselor, for it said “take me and eat, I am the end and calm”; it is deceitful because it passed itself off before man as God, who alone ends suffering forever and calms the heart. Accursed is he who falls before the smallest wind and breaks like a shattered column; but before strong winds it is permitted even to them to fall—they will be mourned. What then—will they refuse you a consecrated cemetery? Who knows what sleep is in an unconsecrated grave? Still, better to die among children and grandchildren weeping, watching spring trees unfold, and to have a quiet hour.
The Rock That Opened on the Fathers
When the Szaman says this, the paupers surround him, say he teaches well, is a man of heart, perhaps sent from God, and tell him that five days ago a rock fell and blocked a corridor where a certain old man with five sons worked; the guards will not blast it with powder, saying it is long work, let him die. They stand daily by the rock listening whether the men still live, but hear nothing, not even a groan. They beg the Szaman, if he is a man of God, to roll away the stone, since perhaps the father or one child still lives; at least to amaze their executioners by freeing them, for they will die of hunger.
The Szaman is led to the rock; great silence falls; he lifts his eyes and prays. An underground wind comes and overturns the rock, opening a dark deep chasm; no one dares enter first. The Szaman takes a lamp, enters over the broken stones, followed by Anhelli and the prisoners. They see a terrible sight: on the body of the youngest son lies the father, like a dog placing its paws on a bone and angry; the father’s open eyes shine like glass, and four other dead lie nearby, one upon another. The Szaman says: “what have I done? the father lives and the sons have already died. Why did I pray!” So saying he leaves the cave, and half the crowd follows him.
The Prophet by the Black Water
Passing farther, they see many pale, tormented people whose names are known in the fatherland. They come to an underground lake and walk its dark, motionless shore, golden here and there from lamp light. The Szaman asks whether this is the Poles’ Sea of Gennesaret and whether these people are fishermen of misfortune. One sitting sad by the black water, with a pensive face, answers that they are allowed rest because it is the king’s name-day and a day of respite; they sit to muse, think, and rest, for their hearts are wearier than their bodies. They have lately lost their prophet, whose favorite place this rock was and to whom these waters were dear. He was a pale man with blue eyes, thin and full of fire. Seven years ago the spirit of prophecy seized him one night; he felt the shuddering that was in the fatherland and told them all night what he saw, laughing and weeping. Only at morning he grew sad and cried out: “behold, they have risen, but they cannot roll away the grave!” and having said this he fell dead. They set up a wooden cross for him. Two years later new exiles told them what had happened, and counting the nights they recognized the prophet had told them the truth; they wished to honor him, but he was already in the earth. They respect the cross without saying the man beneath was a madman, a lunatic, worthy of laughter—and ask what the Szaman says to that.
The Szaman turns to Anhelli and asks why he is so pensive over the black water made of human tears—whether he muses on the prophet or on himself. A great echo from a mine blast spreads, repeating overhead like an underground bell; the Szaman says it is the ringing for the dead prophet, the Angelus for those who do not see the sun, and bids prayer. Lifting his eyes he prays: God, let our torment be redemption; they will no longer beg for sun to their eyes and air to their breasts, knowing His judgment has fallen, but the newborn are innocent—have mercy. Forgive them that they bear the cross sadly and do not rejoice as martyrs, for He has not said whether their torment counts as sacrifice; let Him say and they will rejoice. What is life that it should be regretted? Is it a good Angel leaving us at the hour of death? The heat of blood is the fire of sacrifice, and sacrifice is our will; happy are those who can devote themselves for the people. The paupers say he speaks truth, for unhappier than they are those who have no one to sacrifice themselves for.
The Pitcher, the Knife, and the Death of the Szaman
The Szaman warns that Easter approaches and a red cross will be written on their gates—but with what blood? Truly, not the blood of a lamb. Some are frightened; one of the drunkards throws a clay pitcher at the prophet, reddening his hair with blood. Anhelli seizes an axe to take revenge, but the Szaman stops him, urging patience: whoever returns here in a year will weep over them, so why take vengeance on those who tomorrow will be worthy of pity? He prays God not to punish them. One of the crowd shouts that the sorcerer has bewitched them—the pitcher was full and has dried up. Others confirm this and demand he disenchant them or die. A great clamor and curses arise; one man stabs the Szaman in the chest with a knife, saying he has bewitched them.
The old man falls into Anhelli’s arms; Anhelli carries him out, helped by the young woman Ellenai, once a criminal. In the starlit place the old man asks to be carried near the graves, for he will sleep. They lay him on a grave-mound; the cold snow revives him, and the woman wraps his legs in her hair, holding them to her breast. Opening his eyes, he calls three times “Anhelli!” in a sad voice. He tells Anhelli to take his reindeer and go north, where he will find dwelling in snow and peace, living on reindeer milk. He is to take the woman as a sister; she loved him in the hour of death, and he does not wish her to perish like the others. Death will speak for him; he loved Anhelli because he was pure as a lily and like a good son. He urges him not to grieve until death over the fall of his Fatherland, nor weep that he will not see it—all is a sad dream. Anhelli hears footsteps in the snow and wonders if it is death; it is a reindeer, which stands over its dying master with astonished eyes full of great tears; the Szaman turns from it weeping. Anhelli takes the old man’s hand and feels it is dead. He buries the old man in the snow and asks the woman to be his sister and come with him; she falls at his feet calling him “my Angel.” They go north, the Szaman’s reindeer following, knowing they follow new masters. Anhelli is silent, his heart full of tears and sorrow.
Ellenai’s Death in the Ice Hut
Anhelli, the woman, and the reindeer go to the far northern desert and dwell in an empty hut cut in ice. He grows accustomed to calling the criminal and penitent “sister.” She serves him, strews his bed with leaves, milks the reindeer evening and morning. Her heart, through constant prayer, becomes full of tears, sorrows, and heavenly hopes; her body grows beautiful, her eyes shine with wondrous brightness and trust in God, her hair grows long like a broad garment or the tent of a poor pilgrim. Anhelli marvels that she is calm about the future despite her great crime and blood-stained hands, and that her complaint is small, like an innocent child’s weeping when she envies the birds their heavenly wings, seeing white terns journey toward the golden sun. She fears to stain herself with impure words, saying God surely hears and watches them two on the vast desert.
The Siberian day comes: the sun does not set but runs across the sky like a horse with a fiery mane and white forehead. The terrible light never ends; the roar of ice is like God’s voice calling to wretched, forsaken people. Long sorrow and longing bring the exile to death; she lies on her leafy bed among her reindeer to die. At sunset—for nights have begun in Siberia—she turns her sapphire eyes, flooded with great tears, to Anhelli and says she has loved him, her brother, and is leaving. She asks to be buried under a pine in a sad ravine, and wonders what she will be after death: she would like to be some living thing near him, even a little spider that a prisoner loves, coming to eat from his hand along a golden sunbeam. She was attached to him as sister and mother, and more still—but the grave ends everything. She begs him not to forget her, for who will remember her after death except the reindeer she milked while weeping? She asks where people go after death, for she is uneasy though she hopes in God. She says she will fly to his native land to see his home, his servants, his parents if they still live, even the place of his childhood bed and cradle. She anticipates he will call these common thoughts, that a person does not fly after death—but with such a thought death is more beautiful. She points to the ice pane above her bed, red with sun, with two wings of rays: is it not a golden Angel standing over her? The reindeer pull moss from under her deathbed, eating it; she bids them farewell. She will raise her eyes to the Queen of Heaven and pray. The dying woman begins the litany to the Mother of Christ, and just as she says “Golden Rose!” she dies. As a sign of miracle, a living rose falls on the dead woman’s white breast and lies there; a strong rose fragrance spreads through the cave. Anhelli dares not move the body or arrange the outstretched hands, but sits at the bed’s end and weeps. Around midnight there is a great rustling; he thinks it is the reindeer, but it is otherwise: a cloud as of dark spirits stops above the cave laughing aloud, dark faces appear through the split ice vault crying “She—” and the fragment breaks off there.
What the Poem Carries
The figures of Anhelli are less characters than states of soul. The Szaman is the prophet-guide who chooses a single pure heart to bear what a whole people cannot, and his death at the hands of the very exiles he came to comfort turns the poem’s question back on them: whether suffering teaches patience or only breeds cruelty. Anhelli himself is almost passive, a witness whose purity is his only office; the poem’s most vivid life belongs to Ellenai, the penitent criminal whose long hair warms the dying Szaman’s legs and whose death is answered by a miraculous rose. Around them the exiles, the children fed bread for their faith, the man poisoned by lead, the father who outlives his five sons—each is a variation on the same theme, that misery can break a person before the smallest wind or, before strong winds, be permitted to fall and be mourned.
Hope and sacrifice drive the poem’s argument. The Szaman tells the exiles that hope will come from them to future generations, and that if hope dies in them, future generations will be of dead people. He prays that their torment may count as redemption, and he calls sacrifice the will’s own fire—happy are those who can devote themselves for the people. Yet the poem refuses easy consolation: the Szaman’s prayer over the rock fails, the prophet dies the moment he sees that the risen cannot roll away the grave, and the dark spirits laugh over Ellenai’s corpse. Słowacki writes the exile not as martyrdom to be celebrated but as a long dream from which the only awakenings are death, memory, and the fragile holiness of a rose on a dead woman’s breast.
